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A SERMON 



0ccastoneIi t^ t$e 30eat|) 



OF 



WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 



STfje 3o2 of ttjt Ci)rii5ttatt JSourner: 



A 



SERMON 

OF 

WILLIAM HICKLING PEESCOTT, 

PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, 
Feb. 6, 1859. 



BY RUFUS ELLIS. 



PUBLISHED BY THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 

117, Washington Street. 

1859. 



A 






BOSTON: 

printed by john wilson and son, 
22, School Street. 



MAY 2 4 1916 



S E E M O N. 



John xiv. 28 : " If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go 

UA'TO the Father." 

Let us admit, at the outset, that it is a very high 
strain. The words must have seemed, at first, a very 
hard saying to the disciples : they may seem so to us. 
Those disciples did love their Lord, and yet hardly 
in that wise. They did love their Lord; but their 
hearts were troubled when they heard him speak of 
going away. Nevertheless, the time came when his 
joy was fulfilled in them; when the invisible Lord of 
glory, restored at once to the bosom of the Father 
and to the communion of his believing children, was 
more to them even than the dear friend, the sweet 
light of whose heavenly face had made their world 
so bright and beautiful. The strain, I say, is a high 
one. The joy of which the Saviour speaks may be 
thought to be beyond our measure. The words, 
though caught from the most loving lips that ever 
framed themselves to human speech, may even sound 



strange and harsh ; and yet, as is ever found to be the 
case with the hard sayings of the gospel, we have 
here a great affirmation of a transcendent faith, a 
portion of absolute truth which is sure to be accepted, 
sooner or later, by all who are of the truth. 

The joy of which our Saviour speaks supposes a very 
elevated and pure affection, — an affection far tran- 
scending in quality and measure the love with which 
too many of us love one another ; and it supposes 
also a great faith, — a soul that has felt the powers, 
and is persuaded of the realities, of the world to come. 
Such joy and such faith may well be numbered amongst 
the highest Christian attainments, to be made our own 
only in proportion as we exercise ourselves in the 
discipline of the Master, and strive and pray for larger 
measures of his spirit. We are accustomed to speak 
of the great duties and the great sacrifices which are 
proposed for the believer, the exceeding righteous- 
ness which should mark the Christian ; and they say 
well who so speak : but great persuasions, great affec- 
tions, and great joys, as well as great works, are 
included amongst gospel successes, and go largely to 
make up our ideal of the Christian character. It is 
much to do justly and love mercy, by the grace of 
Christ helping our infirmity: but it is not enough, 
and we have not had our full portion of the unspeak- 
able gift, imless the gospel has been made to us a 



source of faith and hope and joy, a sweet fountain of 
love ; unless it has called up in our hearts a feeling of 
gladness, nourished by the clear and strong persuasion, 
that what we cannot see is infinitely more real and 
glorious than what we can see. " He that followeth 
me^' said the Saviour^ " shall not walk in darkness^ hut 
shall have the light of life'' We do not follow Christ 
with the best and truest following, unless we walk in 
that light, with a measure of that gladness and single- 
ness of heart which marked his chosen and nearest 
disciples, even in the time of their bereavement, as 
they went from house to house through the streets of 
that Jerusalem which should know him no more for 
ever. Let me dwell a moment upon the great thought 
of our Lord. 

1. " If y^ loved me.'' The Master supposes an affec- 
tion so deep, so high, so unselfish, as to rise above the 
natural desire for the visible presence of the beloved 
object, — a love so disinterested, that it can rejoice 
even in a separation, when this separation is mani- 
festly for the good of our friend. It is not that we 
do not crave the dear, familiar presence : it is that 
we will not suffer this craving to prevail over our 
sense of satisfaction, when we think of the inheritance 
of light and freedom upon which they enter who die 
in the Lord. And it is the very quality of love to 
postpone self, and live only in its object; to suffer 



gladly ; yes, to rejoice in the hour of agony, when he 
for whom our tears are flowing has gone forward and 
upward in going away from us. The wisest human 
interpreter of man's heart has expressed this thought 
in this wise : — 

" Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
The hand that writ it ; for I love you so, 
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 
If thinking on me then should make you woe. 
Oh ! if, I say, you look upon this verse, 
When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. 
But let your love e'en with my life decay. 

So love casts self behind. So love hates and de- 
stroys self. Its utmost desire, its great and final 
labor, is to fill that other cup of life to overflowing ; 
and, though separation be only a death in life, it will 
take up even that cross, if so its dearer self may be 
the gainer. 

2. I say, " may be the gainer." We cannot rejoice, 
we cannot even be content, in the time of bereave- 
ment, unless we are persuaded of this. The disciples 
were to be glad, because their Lord was to go to the 
Father ; because the day of his voluntary humiliation 
was soon to come to an end, and he who had gone 
about amongst men in the form of a servant, not 
eagerly insisting upon his greatness, but drinking to 
the dregs the cup of human sorrow, would soon leave 
the world, and resume the glory which he had with his 



Father before the world was. Blessed and beneficent 
as his earthly life had been, that exaltation to the 
right hand of God promised a joy and a service far 
more glorious. When they were made to realize 
this truth, they did rejoice. The light of hope came 
again into their eyes, when theu' steadfast gaze fol- 
lowed into the heavens his vanishing form, and his 
spirit returned to guide and comfort them, and they 
were enabled to do greater works than ever before, 
because of the power and the glory which proceeded 
from the Father and the Son. It was expedient for 
them that he should go aw^ay. They lost the limited 
humanity ; but they were brought nearer to the illi- 
mitable divinity, — to the spirit of an everlasting life. 
You may say that it was not faith, but knowledge, 
that changed the sadness of the disciples into joy. 
You may tell me of the evidence afforded to doubting 
Thomas, but not afi'orded to us. You may remind 
me that those were days of open vision. But bear in 
mind, that, if they saw, it was that they and w^e might 
believe. And consider the words of the Lord to 
Thomas : " Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast 
believed : blessed are they who have not seen, and 
yet have believed." There is a Christian persuasion 
of the life to come, — a persuasion wrought into the 
soul by the words and the wonders of the Saviour's 
ministry, by the whole mysterious influence of his 



8 

being, — which changes what for so many is only a 
great darkness into the splendors of the eternal day. 
If we would rejoice, we must believe, and believe 
greatly. Nothing but faith and hope can save us from 
desolation. It is not enough to have risen above those 
plaintive wailings in which the patient suiFerer of the 
Old Testament breathes out his soul's grief and 
despair, asking so piteously, " If a man die, shall he 
live again ] " and getting no answer save this, " There 
is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will 
sprout again, and that its tender branches will not 
fail. . . . But man dieth, and he is gone for ever ! 
Man expire th, and where is he ] " No answer, — 
only another question. It is not enough to believe 
in shadows and spectres, in a land where the light 
itself is little better than darkness, and thin, airy 
forms flit about in the distance, and vanish into 
the gloomy spaces. Speaking of such a heaven as 
that, the shade of the great Grecian hero might 
well declare, that he would rather be the slave of the 
meanest of earth's children, and dwell in the light of 
day, than reign as king in Hades. We must believe 
great things concerning the life to come. Not that we 
can have definite and tangible statement, any more 
than the blind can have knowledge of colors. 

" What is the heaven our God bestows? 
No prophet yet nor angel knows." 



9 



And yet, because the future so surpasses our con- 
ceptions, let us not make it shadow}" and unreal, or 
magnify the life to come by putting a slight upon 
this life. Only by reason of the glory which excel- 
leth shall this world have no glory. Accept the 
goodness and greatness and beaut}" of earth ; revere 
and love and cleave to them ; and yet believe that 
they may be transfigiu'ed. The Lord was ever majes- 
tic and gracious ; but how much more so, when, on 
the mount of vision, the heavenly streamed through 
the earthly, and his face did shine as the sun, and his 
raiment was white as the light ! Christ has opened 
the most cheering visions of the light beyond the 
grave. He hath abolished death. His affirmation of 
life, — life unceasing, not to be sunk for ages in the 
slumber of an intermediate state, — life which flows 
out of time into and through eternit}' ; his affiirmation 
that God is not, and never has been, the God of the 
dead, but of the living, — is firm and unqualified. It 
is a life, he says, w^hich we share with himself ; for 
he is that life and that resurrection. AVe must not 
fall away from the highest conceptions of immortalit}". 
If we call the words of Scripture upon this topic 
figurative, — and they could hardly be otherwise, for 
they who are caught up into the heavens hear what it 
is neither la^^^ful nor possible to utter, — let us accept 
the figures, not as exaggerations, but as inadequate, 



10 



halting, stammering utterances of things too great to 
be told. If that heavenly city hath " no need of the 
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it," it is only 
because "the glory of God doth lighten it, and the 
Lamb is the light thereof." If there is " no temple 
therein," it is only because the " Lord God Almighty 
and the Lamb are the temple of it." When the 
senses and the understanding put the old question, 
" How are the dead raised up, and with what body do 
they come ] " let us hear the great apostle, when he 
says, " God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him ; " 
and " that which is sown in corruption is raised in 
incorruption ; that which is sown in weakness is 
raised in power." "We are not so much unclothed as 
clothed upon : our mortality is swallowed up of life." 
We want to believe greatly, as Christians should. 
Like Christian and Hopeful in the immortal "Pil- 
grim's Progress," we would, sometimes at least, be in 
heaven before we come to it ; " being swallowed up 
with the sight of angels, and with hearing of their 
melodious notes." Here also, we are told, " they had 
the city itself in view; and they thought they heard 
all the bells therein to ring to welcome them thereto." 
This world is beautiful, and our Father's ; and yet 
our day of death is a day of emancipation. There is 
a burden of the flesh. The atmosphere of the earth 
is laden with heavy and stupefying vapors, and not fit 



11 

to be the breath of the spirit's life. These bodies are 
ah'eady the temples of the Lord, — marvellous organ- 
isms, beautifully fashioned for their place and work. 
You have all seen how sweetly the light of love will 
shine from the human face, and how the fruits of 
wisdom and gentleness will cluster about human lips ; 
and yet it is but an earthen vessel, after all, that 
guards our treasure. The body is but an imperfect 
instrument. The mind soon wearies and wears out the 
brain, the discerning soul overtaxes and exhausts 
the eye of flesh, and the poor tired limbs totter upon 
the heart's errand of charity. And then we are 
limited within, as well as without, — perplexed by 
mysteries, burdened by infirmities, tempted to fall back 
from our aspirations and our purposes ; and we seem 
to ourselves like those who move about in sleep, only 
half conscious of the great realities of our existence. 
Doubtless there is that in our translation, even when 
we leave behind the most useful works and the most 
dearly loved friends, which makes the change most 
blessed, certainly if we can know that those whom 
we have left for a short time are at least not sorry as 
they who have no hope. 

I may add, that when the mind is calmed and 
soothed, if not positively gladdened, by this faith, it 
is in a condition to consider gratefully how much 
remains, even when our friend has been taken. The 



12 



light of the world into which he has gone is thrown 
back upon his earthly life, and adds its own peculiar 
charm to what was so beautiful before. If the re- 
membrance of the just was blessed, even in the 
twilight season of the old religions, how much more 
blessed when we know that they have gone from us 
to be made perfect ! This earth, and all that live 
upon it, are seen in their fairest light, only when the 
vision of the old patriarch is repeated in our expe- 
rience, and, before our anointed eyes, a heavenward 
path " glows with angel-steps." 

You know, my friends, what hath befallen to give 
this direction to my thoughts. There is no need that 
I should tell you. When the heart of a city is sad- 
dened because its light has been withdrawn, its pride 
and its joy taken ; when the whole land is moved, in 
its noisy marts and its quiet retreats, by the tidings of 
the death of one who was the nation's boast ; when the 
world of letters, even beyond the range of our English 
speech, deplores and shall deplore the loss of one of 
its most faithful and efficient laborers and brightest 
ornaments, — we need not pronounce any name ; our 
minds are irresistibly drawn to contemplate the per- 
petual mystery of our living and dying in the light of 
our Saviour s everlasting gospel ; and we must stay a 
moment to gather up the lessons of the earthly days 



13 

that have been finished. Moreover, the common 
bereavement is our special loss and affiction, — how 
heavily it presses upon one of these households, it 
would be an intrusion upon the most sacred privacy 
of grief to tell you ; — and although he whose going- 
out from us we lament was singularly modest and 
retiring, as eager to escape as too many are to invite 
the notice of men, it is but fitting, and what even he 
would pardon, that we should pause upon the mean- 
ing of his life, as it comes home to us in this hour. 
I leave to the brethren of his own noble calling the 
pleasant task of recording his story, with careful men- 
tion of years and months and places. To be so 
associated with his name will be no slight honor. 
My concern is not so much with facts of life as with 
traits of character ; not so much with what he did as 
with w^hat he was. And, even so limited, I must be 
brief; which I can the better be, since much of what 
I would have said has already found expression in 
fitter words than any that I can command, especially by 
one whose claim to be heard upon a theme so attrac- 
tive is far stronger than mine. Would that he were 
the speaker, and I the listener, in this very hour ! 
And yet, for the sake of my subject, I know that you 
will listen patiently ; for he whom we mourn was one 
whose praises all men loved to hear. 

The Christian pulpit has no special concern with 



14 



merely intellectual greatness and success. It is 
sacred, not secular. It is reared and set apart for 
the defence and illustration of the gospel. It is the 
preacher s business to set forth spiritual and moral 
truth: and, with many whom the world calls great 
men, he can have nothing to do, save, perhaps, to 
urge that great men are not always wise ; or that the 
strongest, as well as the feeblest, are alike dependent 
upon the great God ; or, it may be, with the Christian 
apostle and seer, to lift a little the veil which hides 
from us the unseen, and show the dead, small and 
great, standing before the throne of the Judge. It is 
for the world to magnify its own heroes. Let the 
dead bury their dead, and pronounce their eulogies. 
Here we use wisdom only in that scriptural sense 
which includes a distinctively moral element. We 
speak only of the truly great and wise ; and our word, 
even concerning these, touches directly the spiritual 
and moral quality of their service and example. And 
so my theme is not the scholar, but the Christian 
scholar. I speak to you not so much of him, who 
with profound and laboriously gained learning, and in 
words that charmed at once the wise and the simple, 
wrote of the fortunes of men and nations, as of him 
who toiled to learn and to tell the truth of man's life, 
to paint faithful pictures, and make an honest record 
of human experience, — to bring a conscience and a 



15 



heart to his high task. It is true, indeed, in a good 
sense, as we have learned from the living and dying 
and rising of our Lord, that all history is sacred ; that 
the hand of God is in it from first to last, and in 
Greece, in Italy, in Spain, as well as in Palestine ; 
and you will realize yet more, upon a moment's reflec- 
tion, how largely the pictures of man's life which our 
masterly artist painted illustrate the workings, so 
mighty, so instructive, and, as overruled by God, so be- 
neficent, even in their perversions and distortions, of 
the ideas which Christ gave to the world. The stu- 
dent of church-history must group about himself such 
studies as Ferdinand the Catholic, Philip the Bigot, 
Torquemada the Inquisitor, and those terrible con- 
querors, half fanatics and half desperadoes, who tried 
to forget, in their lust of gold, that God hath given to 
us the heathen for our inheritance, not that we may 
slay, but that we may convert them. Nevertheless, it 
belongs to laborers in the field of literature to record 
afresh, as they have so gladly done already, their esti- 
mate of the abundant contributions to good learning 
made by our great historian. Of the writer, as a 
writer, I have only a single word to say here and 
now, — one word only, and yet a significant one. I 
find a moral quality in our historian's style ; a direct 
manifestation therein of the simple integrity of his 
soul ; the genuineness and openness of his nature in 



16 



his written words ; the same transparent clearness 
upon the page which was to be seen upon the face, 
— the one, as the other, — a medium which might in 
no wise hide, but could only reveal, his thought. I 
cannot but admire a calm, judicial fairness, which 
would exaggerate nothing for eifect, and weighed 
epithets and adjectives, that are so often regarded as 
beyond the pale of conscience, as scrupulously as a 
vulgar honesty weighs gold and merchandise. It is, 
as I said, no light matter. Words may be written as 
well as spoken idly : they often are. It is a grave 
offence to sacrifice truth to rhetoric, fairness and cha- 
rity to an antithesis, and to be indifferent whether the 
lights we kindle mislead or no, provided they are 
only brilliant and fantastic. And it is encouraging to 
the friend of truth and simplicity to know, that the 
pure brightness of that honest page found the widest 
and heartiest appreciation ; and that those who would 
have been wearied and worn out by a false brilliancy 
found a genuine satisfaction as they yielded them- 
selves to the magic of nature. There is an integrity 
of intellect as well as of heart. But I need not speak 
to you of volumes which are in all your dwellings, 
their contents familiar to your ears as well as your 
eyes ; for the smoothly flowing style encourages audi- 
ble reading, and makes the books specially welcome 
to the household circle. 



17 

Pass from the writings, then, to the writer. It is 
not, as is so often the case, an unpleasant transition. 
What his opponents said of St. Paul is sometimes 
most unhappily true of the author : " His letters, say 
they, are weighty and powerful ; but his bodily pre- 
sence is weak, and his speech contemptible." The 
writings apologize for the man. In this case, had 
there been any need, it might have been precisely the 
other way ; for, great as the fame of the writer was, it 
has been truly said that the man was greater. His 
days w^ere passed, for the most part, in the presence 
of you all : from boyhood onward, that face of truth 
and beauty, stamped with such a gentle manliness, 
has carried about through your streets its unspoken 
benediction. The friends of his early days, his school 
and college companions, tell us, that what he has 
been to us in his last years, just that he was to them 
in his first years, — that, and no other ; as harmless 
as he was wise, as unassuming as he was gifted; 
from first to last, genuine and consistent, and a child 
in malice ; neither to be discouraged by difficulty, nor 
to be spoiled by the abundance of successes and 
applause. My own personal knowledge of him covers 
only these few last years ; and yet he could not be a 
stranger. Amongst the pictures of childhood laid up 
in the mind's image-chamber, there are no portraits 
more distinct than those of his parents, — honored 

3 



18 

and beloved both, beyond any common measures. I 
can see them now, as, on the Lord's Day, they passed 
quietly and reverently to their seats in our house of 
worship on yonder Church Green. I can almost 
fancy that one of them is still wending her way 
through our streets, in storm as well as in sunshine, 
none the less a sister of charity because the devoted 
mother of her own household, — a woman who was 
the friend at once of the highest and of the lowliest, 
and who had found not only one sphere, but many. 
I saw the mother again in the son. And then, on his 
own part, he would not be a stranger. With a ten- 
derness for the clergyman of his parish, — one of 
those old-fashioned virtues to which his true conser- 
vatism clung, — he was amongst the first in the 
congregation to seek the pastor, and to welcome him 
with the word and the look of a friend ; and you 
know what they were from him. And, what he was 
in the beginning, that he was to the end. More I 
might say, but may not. It is a privilege to have 
shared such kindness ; but it brings its own sense of 
bereavement. 

This life, which has come to a close for this world, 
was not without its heroism. I am aware, indeed, 
that both histories and historian would be likely to 
make upon the hasty reader and observer the impres- 
sion of cheaply earned successes. We are ready 



19 



to say, that what is so easily read must have been 
easily written ; and, where there are no marks of 
struggle, we conclude that there has been none. But 
the student knows that easy writing is pretty sure to 
be hard reading ; and the reader of men will tell you, 
that self-discipline has as much to do as nature in the 
production of a quiet and genial activity. There was, 
it is true, a noble being to be unfolded and built 
upon, — not one talent only, but ten ; and yet, in this 
as in every other case, where any thing really excel- 
lent has been achieved, there were obstacles and there 
was heroism. Think of the patience, the painstaking, 
and the persistency which could bring so many 
orderly and reliable and well-told narratives out of a 
chaos of printed and written volumes, most of them in 
foreign and even partially obsolete tongues ; and this 
rather with the help of the ear than of the eye. That 
sadly impau'ed vision would have been availed of by 
most young men of fortune as an excuse for an ele- 
gant dilettanteism, a graceful trifling, a life of amuse- 
ment and luxury. But for him it was a sore trial, 
bravely and sweetly borne ; it w^as a grievous hin- 
derance, stoutly met and triumphed over. The story 
of the expedients by which the infirmity was in some 
degree successfully encountered is very touching, and 
strikingly illustrates the perseverance of a living soul. 
It is a grand example for those to ponder who fancy 



\ 



20 



that the parables of the talents are not for them, 
because they are not compelled to effort by any stress 
of poverty, — for all who accept idleness as their des- 
tiny, because others have labored, and they have 
entered into their labors. It is a lesson which is espe- 
cially valuable in a land where hereditary wealth does 
not bring with it, by the very constitution of society, 
hereditary duties. Let our youth weigh it well. 
They may not be able to instruct and delight tens of 
thousands with their learning and eloquence ; but are 
they, therefore, utterly incompetent of good ] Have 
they no errand on the earth, save to eat and drink, 
and wear clothes ] Shall any most frivolous excuse 
discharge them from their work 1 In God's name, 
let them do something ; let them find each his task, 
though it may be a very humble one. If they can do 
nothing else, let them make some wilderness habita- 
ble. The earth is not half subdued; society is not 
half civilized : and we may be sure that the wise 
Creator, who himself worketh hitherto, never yet 
made an idler. The very day of his departure found 
our friend reproaching himself for an inactivity, 
which, to every one else, seemed not only pardonable, 
but right, — laying upon weakness tasks which only 
strength could bear; and, when the angel of God 
came to summon him, the materials and the instru- 
ments of his life-long industry were awaiting his 



21 

hand ; and he died, as he had Uved, a worker. De- 
scribing once a chronic difficulty of vision, — a mote 
thrusting itself for ever into the line of light, — he 
said, very quietly, " I presume, that, if it were flitting 
before your eyes, you would not be inclined to use 
them at all : I have become accustomed to it." Pa- 
tience had its perfect work, — so perfect, that she 
made no sign. 

But the greatest charm has as yet only been hinted 
at. I find an intellect obedient to the man, and not 
a man subordinated to an intellect. It is the vice of 
the intellect to usurp the domain of the whole being. 
Hence the conceit of knowledge and the foolishness 
of wisdom ; hence arrogance, jealousies, rivalries, evil 
speakings, magisterial airs, and intellectual despotisms. 
Let a man become a mere intellect, and he is intolera- 
ble ; and all his learning will win for him no loyalty 
of admiration and affection. We grow weary of the 
pedant ; and, when he is gone, we do not desire him. 
One, who knew our friend more thoroughly than 
any, has told me that he did not seem to care much for 
intellect, or to exact learning and the like from others. 
It was, simply, that he cared so much more for our 
large and various humanity, as it makes the home 
blessed and beautiful ; as it is displayed in childhood, 
youth, and age ; as it is seen in common, every-day 
conditions : it was, simply, that he was a true demo- 



22 



crat, without any demagogic ways and airs ; and a 
true philanthropist, though he never compassed sea 
and land to the neglect of the nearest and dearest. I 
think the human face was dear to him. He could 
not let you go by him in the street, without exchan- 
ging a word as well as a sign of greeting, — a word 
that was sure to be as cheerful as his look, and to 
witness unconsciously for his loving nature. He did 
not love men because he was blind to their faults ; 
but he was blind to the faults of men because he loved 
them. It was this abundance of love that made his 
character so gentle and almost womanly ; for his was 
the might of gentleness. Perhaps, as our poor huma- 
nity must always purchase its successes at a price, 
this incapacity to dwell upon faults amounted almost 
to a defect. Certainly, if there be any merit in being 
a good hater, it was a merit to which he could lay 
no claim. 

Of the interior life, I have no report to make to 
you. I think that he was chary of speech upon 
directly religious subjects ; preferring to witness for 
his convictions by works rather than by words, and, 
in an age which is afflicted with much confused and 
insignificant and aimless discussion of the deepest 
themes, choosing the refuge of silence. That he 
prized the worship of the church, I know ; that his 
spirit was profoundly reverent, and his allegiance to 



/ 



23 

the truth unhesitating, I am more than satisfied. I 
rejoice that he can never be confounded with those 
men of letters, so numerous, alas ! in our day, who 
openly neglect or affect to patronize the gospel. 
I know that he loved the Lord's house, and that such 
of its forms as he saw his way clear to accept were 
for him no formalities. More I cannot tell you. If 
you would judge the heart, see what flowed out from 
its abundance. 

Do you ask me, Had he no faults ? I answer, 
Undoubtedly ; for he was human : and yet, as I do not 
know what they were, I cannot tell you of them if I 
would. 

But my memorial must be brought to an end. It 
is a poor picture ; but, for that, you must blame not 
the subject, but the artist. My friends, it was sad to 
know, as we rose up in our sanctuary about our 
honored dead on that day of weeping, that we should 
see him no more on this earth for ever ; that we 
should seek for him in vain in his accustomed seat in 
this house of prayer : but sadness shall give place 
to cheerful hope, at least to resignation and trust, if 
we will be Christians in very deed as in name. So 
may God consecrate this grief to the nearest and to 
the more removed ! It hath been resurrection-time, 
you know, since our Lord went to the Father. The 
memorials that are spread out before us to-day re- 



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mind us of a victory as well as of a defeat : for He 
who died for our sins, rose for our justification ; and 
the gospel that is preached unto you is a word of life 
and immortality. 



